Healaheart - Love Approval
Ann's Story
I began my spiritual search at age 10. I questioned the limited view of God held by my childhood religious training. During college then later as a wife and mother of 2 young boys I continued to question and search. Not so much interested in finding a religion, I was seeking a personal relationship with a loving God. In my forties I faced several losses that turned my life upside down and gave new urgency to my spiritual search.
The Bleak Years
The years between 1994 and 1999, I considered my bleakest. I was a housewife and Cub scout leader when one day at a Labor Day picnic, my youngest son Kyle died suddenly at age 9 from an acute asthma attack. He had been struggling with asthma since he was a toddler. A loving couple who came to Illinois for Kyle’s funeral, including their three young children, perished on their return trip to Pennsylvania when their airplane crashed. Within a year my close and supportive life long friend died of pancreatic cancer. Amidst all the pain and sorrow, my 19 year marriage ended, the dog died and my remaining son Dan left for college. I left the family home and wondered what God had in store for me next. Much of my previous life was gone and I was feeling alone with the sadness, loss and a painful realization of my own codependency.
While feeling overwhelmed by my own needy state, I was functioning as a wounded healer healthcare professional helping others. Not wanting to escape into unhealthy habits, such as the alcoholism I had witnessed in my life, I found refuge in turning within for consolation. Instead of turning in bitterness against God, I discovered that my pathway to God would be through my broken heart. In time I began to gratefully acknowledge my solitary state and realize that sometimes a whole forest really does need to burn down before new green shoots appear.
New Green Shoots... 
In an attempt to understand my grief and search for answers to why God would seemingly take nearly everyone important away from me, I devoted some time to doing hospice volunteer work. In my career, I had worked with a number of different groups of people. My work taught me much about such significant intrinsic things as the joy of giving, the value of compassion, the importance of acceptance, and the natural evolution of living and dying. Still, despite these many beautiful teachings, the personal pain of the day-to-day struggles remained, as did the feelings of emptiness and loss.
I knew I could not close my heart to my son, my friends, and my clients. Indeed, caring for others kept my heart from closing up, and gradually I began to trust more deeply, less superficially than in the past, that everything in my life to that point was not by accident. I made a conscious decision not to spiral into a depressive state, but rather to allow the pain and suffering from my losses to be my teacher. I decided that instead of wallowing in my pain I would face it, and trust that God would help me. Reading a plaque in a store, “When God closes a door he opens a window” took on a new meaning. I began to consiously experience the universe as supportive as opposed to random or punitive. By paying attention to the synchronicity in my life, I noticed more and more that my deeper needs were being taken care. Like the tender green shoots that bring new life after a forest fire, I was ripe for opening my heart to the Divine Love that heals.
Opening the Heart past the pain to the Love. . . 
On Labor Day on the anniversary of my son’s death, I attended a workshop entitled “Opening Your Heart to the Love.” It was presented by the Jaffe Institute; more recently renamed the University of Sufism and Healing, which is dedicated to "Global peace through love, personal healing, service and leadership". After attending several Jaffe workshops, I felt I had found a place where my heart could heal while wondering if this could be of help to other wounded hearts. I entered the Healing School program where I learned about ancient Sufi healing practices. Sufism is an ancient mystical path that teaches how to expand the heart's ability to love, in order to dissolve the perceived separation between ourselves, others and, most importantly, the Divine. Little by little, I began to understand about the Divine Love in our hearts, as described by the ancient love poetry of the Sufi mystic Rumi. It is this Love of God, and from God, that heals. As my training began to filter into my daily life and work, not only did my work as a therapist become even more effective, but my work and my spiritual life became more closely aligned.
My Passion
My first is to help people heal from insecurities and fears in relationships and to heal from codependency, relationship and approval addiction that lead to self defeating behavior. To help them go inside and connect with their deeper wisdom and see the many gifts they bring to their relationships with others. I help them have a more balanced relationship that is not enmeshed with others, end the cycle of needing approval to determine their self worth, care about their bodies and not turn to unhealthy ways of self soothing themselves.
Wondering if this work can help you too?
